As GST has completed more than two months; some partial online surveys have been conducted to know, an overall impact of GST on consumers. It was surreal that crossing of tax revenues and the anticipation attached with it goes that GST will make a collection of tax more efficient and bring down the prices. People engaged in the surveys have voluntarily expressed their complaint against the raising prices on medicines, eateries, and rational discrepancies on MRPs.
The meet held at Hyderabad discussed ample issues regarding the increased prices and considered GST as a complex issue in-line with demonetisation. The government is been haunted by the price rise issues as in the meantime it has to be ready for the Lok Sabha election poll by 2019, and hits of GST and demonetisation will be playing a major role in the variation of votes.
Survey 1: Conducted By A Citizen Grievances Portal And Consumer Affair Department
More than 40,000 people participated in the survey and answered the questions asked about post GST implementation. The survey clearly showed that 50% of the consumers reported in the rise of monthly household expenses after GST rollout.
Survey 2: Conducted By Local circle (Consumer Engagement Platform)
Poll On Monthly Expenses: Around 54% visitors responded that their monthly expenses have gone up, by 30% and only 6% have favoured the price came down post-GST.
Poll On Food And Grocery Expenses: In the second poll, they were asked to answer about food and grocery costs and about 51% citizens said that their expenses on grocery and food items hiked between 0-30%, while 26% favored no impact, other 7% citizens said it has been reduced substantially.
Poll On Monthly Medical Expenses: The third poll engaged 8,808 responders, in which, around 47% citizens said that their monthly medical expenses got increased by 0-30% after GST implementation and other 5% respondents stated that their medical expenses got slightly decreased.
Poll On Issuing Proper GST Invoices: In this trading related FAQ, around 67% people responded that they are not getting proper GST invoices while only 18% replied that they are getting proper invoices from the traders.
Government Worries About Pending Refund Claims
In the GST Council’s meeting held recently, Finance Minister has extended the deadlines for filing the returns for July month to prevail a smoother implementation of GST. Furthermore, he said that around 70% of eligible taxpayers have filed the returns of about INR 95,000 crore which included INR 62,000 crore for input tax credit refund claims. With that being said, now the major issue is to distribute that much of refunds to the taxpayers in order to safeguard their capital requirements.
